Belonging www.facebook.com/BarbaraFieldOnGrief

If you haven’t read Brene’ Brown’s latest book, Braving the Wilderness, consider reading it soon. She is a researcher whose findings carried her unwillingly into the world of vulnerability and connection. This newest book is about
her most recent research project where she discovered that having a sense of belonging is the most important thing for everyone. She is a great author and speaker so her books have always been helpful in the past. As a therapist, I was cheering as I read.
As a trauma therapist attachment and belonging are the basis for everything I do. As a newly grieving widow, not so much. I think this idea of belonging is at the core of my grief.

Like Brene’ Brown, I never felt like I belonged anywhere. As a
therapist, I completely understand why. When you have parents who are so broken that there is literally no one in there to attach to, your ability to attune to others and form strong alliances with others is non-existent. Sadly, the effects of this are apparent
from the first day of school. The other kids seem to know some secret that you don’t. They understand the unspoken rules that enable social intelligence and the self confidence to take relational risks that pay off in strong, lasting friendships. I,
despite being bright and physically attractive, always felt like an observer of this wonderful way of being a kid, but clueless as to how they got that way. I was more likely to adopt strays and fight for the underdog than to run with the popular kids. I was
welcome among them, I just never quite knew how to relax and enjoy myself.

Then I met Butch. In his book, Mars and Venus on a Date, John Gray talks about finding your soul mate. He says that you can deeply love someone and yet have an intuitive understanding
that they are just not the one. It eats away at the relationship. And when you find your soulmate, it feels like something you were born to do. No matter how bad things get, there is always this sense that you belong together. If you lose that, you will never
be at peace with that loss. That must be why we chose to do three rounds of marriage counseling rather than give up on ourselves. I am sure our sons wish we had figured it out sooner so they could have had a stronger foundation to build from as they were watching
us. What we taught them about relationship and connection in those early days was messy at best.

All of the bad times in the early days became hysterical stories to tell in the later years. When we did marriage classes at the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation
Center, Butch loved to say, “We have been happily married for 25 years. And we will be celebrating our 35th anniversary in January.” It took them awhile to figure that one out. He would then tell them that we had experimented with all they ways
you could wreck a marriage. He hoped we could give them some ideas to keep that from happening to them. I used to tell them that if they wanted the coolest, most romantic ideas ever, they should ask Butch for tips.

Right from the beginning, Butch made
me feel like I finally belonged. He understood me much better than I will ever understand myself. They say that the greatest desire of all human beings is to be fully known and yet fully loved. We had that. He was always bigger than life to me. I thought he
could fix anything I could break. I was surprised when he didn’t have answers to nearly everything. He was literally the wind beneath my wings, seeing far more of the good in me than I could ever see in myself. He chose to focus on what he loved about
me rather than the annoying qualities I definitely have. For a few years, I spent a week at church camp as a counselor. I voluntarily signed up to live with 12 teenage girls for days and days. One year I packed up all my cool girl stuff, devotional materials,
and art supplies and headed off, driving a friends van and six young people. We were about halfway there when I realized I completely forgot the fundamentals like a sleeping bag and pillow. I announced that we were stopping at WalMart to get what I needed
when they all broke up into wild, hysterical laughter. They said that Butch packed everything I needed in the back of the van and swore them to secrecy. He said not to tell me unless I tried to stop and buy stuff. They couldn’t wait to tell all their
friends!! He had been quietly watching my preparations and known I was as impractical and absent minded as ever. He knew I might just as likely have arrived at camp and unpacked all that without ever realizing I hadn’t packed it in the first place. He
was quite proud of himself for having my back without nagging.

Becoming us without them consists of a very long and ominous to-do list. Anyone who has lost someone they loved and lived with can list all the painful parts. There is nothing we can add
to that list that those ahead of us on the path have not already survived. When the fog of the first year lifts, we are shocked to find ourselves in a foreign land. Every relationship is changed. We don’t belong with the couples or other families the
way we did. We are extra. We are a threat. We make them feel guilty for having what we have lost. In the beginning we don’t belong with the singles who have been at this single life for a while. They often have long-standing relationships that intensify
our sense of being on the outside looking in. People who love us make a genuine effort to show us how much they care and to fill what parts of that hole they can. But they belong to each other and we are guests. Living alone wears you out. We must always return
to that place that no longer feels like home. The one thing on the list that seems as if it can never be checked off or crossed out is to find the sense of belonging that we had when they were alive. Again it is our grieving mentors who assure us that it can
be done. Like that pearl of great value that was created to soothe the irritation of a grain of sand, a life worth living slowly emerges from the what feels like cold and lifeless ashes. The pain of the loss becomes the foundation upon which we build something
valuable that we can’t even imagine in the beginning.

It isn’t that I am not whole without him. I love my work, am arrogantly confident in my ability as a therapist and feel grateful every day for who I have become as a person and as a healer.
Losing Butch has vastly increased my capacity as a Therapist. The thing I miss is looking into his eyes and seeing not only his love for me, but his knowing me to my core. The most painful part of losing him, is knowing that I will never look into another
pair of eyes and see that again.